Re: [HoB/D] ++Peter and resolutions at GC

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

> Perhaps you could suggest some language that you could accept.   XXXXXX

RESOLVED, the House of _____ concurring, that the 76th General Convention of
The Episcopal Church invites Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola, primate of all
Nigeria, to join us in the experience of sustained and respectful listening
to the witness of lesbian and gay Christians.   As recently as 1979 our
Convention held views not very different from those of Nigeria now.   We
have been transformed not by the secular world around us, but by the
spiritual gifts of lesbian and gay Christians already working among us. They
were courageous  to take risks to tell us about Jesus at work in their lives
and in their faithful committed relationships.  And be it further

RESOLVED that we urge the Church in Nigeria to cease and desist in calling
for harsh suppression and persecution of lesbian and gay Nigerians.  Even if
Nigerian Christians feel that lesbians and gays are spiritual lepers, we do
well to remember that Saint Francis embraced the leper; he did not jail the
leper or the leper's  friends.  We have it on Jesus' authority that we will
be judged by whether we love our lesbian and gay neighbors as we love
ourselves.  Let us compete in doing good to all of our neighbors.

Explanation

Three Lambeth conferences have committed the bishops of the Anglican
Communion to undertake this listening.  The Province of Nigeria has yet to
begin the process and needs first to create a climate in which  lesbian and
gay Christians can witness without threat of reprisals.

..... The explanation might then go on to specify occasions when +PJA has
personally and publicly promoted violence and persecution of lgbts.

Caveat:  you will undermine your case severely, as several have done, if you
attribute to +PJA the remarks by Robert Mugabe ('lower than pigs or dog').
+PJA did not say that, and it is slanderous to claim that he did.  It also
shows fundamental laziness on the part of accusers, who would have no hard
work to find +PJA's own objectionable words.

Louie


Louie Crew, 377 S. Harrison St., 12D, East Orange, NJ 07018 973-395-1068
http://queereye4lectionary.blogspot.com/  Queer Eye for the Lectionary